The Sun Always Rises
by thegaygumballmachine
Summary: Hermione reminisces about her highschool days as the world wakes up around her. {oneshot.}


Hermione Lodge never really did like mornings until her move to Riverdale.

In New York, they were just the wrong side of cold, either due to snow or a less packed form of the same, often coming down in heavy sheets by the time she was due to be awake. It was a rarity to even catch a glimpse of the sun; the sky went from gray to lighter gray, and that was the end of it. The clocks were the only thing that mattered about the dawn of a new day, dictating where to be and when… controlling the minutest details of her life, down to the exact second.

But here, in this lazy, sleepy town on the edge of nowhere, with secrets that are contented to be kept and a sort of eerie isolation that has only grown in nature since she was last here, Hermione has come to appreciate the nature of a sunrise. Her breath falls in staccato waves against the frosted glass of a picture window, watching the quiet street below as its occupants begin to wake up with an eye that holds fondness and a certain, slowly dwindling dislike. The tea in her hands is steaming hot and she holds tightly to it as she waits for it to cool, letting the steam warm her face, bring feeling back to it. Her memories of this place are warped, steeped in what can only be described as nostalgia's opposite, the bad exceedingly outweighing the good to the point she can't quite remember if there was in fact any good at all.

With a moment's hesitation, she turns the polished handle of the balcony door, also frosted glass, and steps out, her bare feet quickly chilled against the stone as her dark hair whips about her in the slight wind. The sounds of the day filter quietly into her notice; Tires against gravel, actual birds chirping in a tree somewhere nearby, a cheery good-morning from a woman who must be on some kind of pill to be awake and happy about it this early. It's everything Hermione never had the opportunity to make note of under the never-ending city noise Manhattan insisted on producing. She remembers the choking smell of car exhaust vividly, how integral it had become in her understanding of normalcy, but all she can register now is something faintly sweet, and the dewiness that comes before rain. The darkened sky is beginning to give way to color, reds and golds painting the world from the west, and she brings the tea to her lips at last, smiling into her first sip of true morning.

There is no work to be done. She has no job here, but the lesser aspects of that realization will only come to her when the world starts to turn in a few hours; currently, all she knows is that she can stand here as long as she likes without any kind of consequence.

Her thoughts begin to wander then, the twilight quality of the scene bringing back some of the recollections she'd kept buried. She'd had to forget in order to leave it behind… to let it all go for a fresh start. Hermione had forced herself to forget about her friends from school, the girls that had kept her going in her darkest times, and to her dismay it takes several moments to remember the names attached to the faces.

And suddenly, just like that, the world before her bleeds away into memory. She's sixteen again, kneeling at the edge of Sweetwater River, clothed in a tattered cheer uniform and sobbing her eyes out. Her knees are scraped up, her good name slashed apart, and there is no word for the kind of dry, unforgiving despair that winds through her body at the very thought.

This is a moment she'll never forget, but perhaps the most important part of it is one she'll come to forcefully banish from her mind.

Because a heartbeat later, Mary is just beside Hermione's shaking form, settling her own cardigan over the brunette's shoulders and whispering soothing words into her ear. Mary doesn't care about reputation, or anything but her own opinion of people; she is never swayed by gossip, and that's what makes her such a steadfast friend. She is the only one who would even think of comforting Hermione now, and she's here to see that through, to build her up until she sees herself as the strong, beautiful person the redhead does. The taller girl speaks of all the many times Hermione has helped her similarly; when Penelope Bennet called her fat, when Alice Smith called her a slut, Hermione was always there with her favorite junk food and an unbiased ear, because while those girls are supposedly their friends too she doesn't care about either of them like she cares about Mary. Doesn't care about the names they get called, simply because they can take it where Mary just… can't.

The water looks like dark glass, smooth and intimidating, and her reflection ripples back at her as she watches it closely for any sign of the heat, the liveliness, for which she is meant to be known. All she can find is loneliness, and an overwhelming sadness that, when it's reflected back at her, she can hardly stand the weight of.

 _"You'll be okay, Hermione. You're the strongest out of all of us. You've got more integrity than all of them put together."_

And Mary hugs her then, pulling Hermione to her without allowing room for resistance, but the brunette doesn't even try, coming to lay with her head in Mary's lap and crying the last tears she ever will for Penelope as the paler girl combs through her hair. Her fingers are nimble and sure, and it is soothing, allowing her to find some kind of peace with the moment… enough, even, to fall asleep.

But, just before she does, she hears Mary whisper that she'll always be there for her, and she doesn't doubt the validity of it for even a second as she drifts off into quiet darkness.

She's going to drop her tea.

Hermione pulls herself back with a shaky breath, her eyes glassy as it clouds away into the air. Her hands are unsteady, and she sets the mug down on the balcony's edge, wondering where exactly Mary is now. Surely, she isn't still living here? Both of them had always dreamed of finding better lives in big cities.

Chicago.

That's where Mary wanted to go. Hermione hopes, in this moment, that she made it: that she's living out her dream of becoming a famous lawyer, that she has that penthouse apartment, that she's happy… whether she has a significant other or not. They were perfect opposites, once upon a time, and that had brought them together. She'd seen something in Mary that she just couldn't shake, and she wishes she could see her face again, if only for a moment. Contact between them has long faded, and she'd told herself it was necessary, for the best, but that lie is breaking apart, and she doesn't know how it ever held up at all.

Her drink now lukewarm, Hermione pulls her robe tight around her, the cozy quality to the dawn all but evaporated. She almost wants it back, but she recognizes how fleeting such things are, and acknowledges that it's entirely her own fault - although these truths do have to be faced sooner or later, preferably before Hiram comes home.

This ideology reminds her, rather jarringly, of Alice - the girl with the dirty blonde hair and no filter, wearing ripped knockoff jeans like they were Gucci and smoking openly on school grounds simply to show that she could. While they were never exactly friends, Hermione has to admire that bravado, hiding within its depths a true and honest ambition to do something real with her life. They didn't share many conversations in school or beyond it, but she does remember catching her with FP Jones in an empty classroom more than once, and an unimpressed smile curls her lips as that image flits across her vision (Alice backed painfully into a desk with his hands slipping under her shirt, not deterred by Hermione's presence in the least - maybe even spurred on by it.)

It truly is a morning of reminiscence.

She finds that she misses these girls, now women. She misses the fiery souls that gave Riverdale High life back in the day, the crew that were so entirely at odds when it came to personality and interests, and yet grew to be the most tight knit group in the school for a time. She misses the connection she'd had with them, the sort of connection she could never find with the socialites in New York. Penelope and Mary were people she could pour her heart out to with no reservation; people she trusted beyond reason back when she was just naive enough to be willing to keep her heart in someone else's hands. And even if she didn't know Alice that well, she could certainly credit the blonde for a majority of the excitement that actually made her interested in coming to school.

Hermione does wonder, on this brisk morning in the eerie twilight, whether Penelope married rich like she wanted… whether Alice ever did pursue journalism. She wonders if any of them still live here; if she might run into these ghosts of her past in her stay that is shaping up to be much longer than she'd anticipated.

Picking up the mug once more, she swirls the remaining liquid around, more for something to do than anything else. The birds have gone quiet, but the people grow louder by the minute, boots clicking against pavement, idle chatter coming in like white noise. The scent of baking bread comes to her gently, and her shoulders relax their tension as the red and gold fades ever so slowly into blue. This could be any town, anywhere, but one thing is for certain:

Whether she can see it or not, no matter what, the sun always rises.


End file.
